Insecticidal activity of Origanum majorana L. essential oil as anti‐cholinergic agent

The present study was focused on exploring the presence of active compounds in Origanum majorana essential oil (OmEO), and its various knock‐down effects against the rice moth, Corcyra cephalonica. GC–MS analysis detected the existence of major compounds such as monoterpenes, cis‐β‐terpineol and terpinen‐4‐ol with the total proportion of 52.16%. Fumigant toxicity against adult and larvae was calculated with an LC₅₀ value of 11.31 and 49.83 μL/L air, respectively. The contact toxicity against adult, pupa, larvae and eggs was observed with LC₅₀ value 2.54, 0.95, 2.78, and 0.49 μL/L, respectively. Furthermore, the influential repellent behavior against adults has been observed. Acetylesterase (AChE) inhibition activity of OmEO was observed against adult and larvae of C. cephalonica with an IC₅₀ value of 35.89 and 118.54 μL/mL, respectively. Moreover, computational docking study revealed the binding affinity of Cis‐β‐terpineol and terpinen‐4‐ol towards the active binding sites of AChE. On the other hand, Fluorescence‐assisted cytometry and comet assay confirmed the cytotoxic and genotoxic effect of OmEO at various concentrations on C. cephalonica. Altogether, the results showed the knock‐down effect of OmEO against C. cephalonica, and it could be a potential biocontrol measure against the stored product pest.     

Tori lines mitigate seabird bycatch in a pelagic longline fishery

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries - Albatross bycatch has been increasing over the past decade in the US tuna longline fishery of the central North Pacific. A controlled field...     

Signal-to-signal neural networks for improved spike estimation from calcium imaging data

Spiking information of individual neurons is essential for functional and behavioral analysis in neuroscience research. Calcium imaging techniques are generally employed to obtain activities of neuronal populations. However, these techniques result in slowly-varying fluorescence signals with low temporal resolution. Estimating the temporal positions of the neuronal action potentials from these signals is a challenging problem. In the literature, several generative model-based and data-driven algorithms have been studied with varied levels of success. This article proposes a neural network-based signal-to-signal conversion approach, where it takes as input raw-fluorescence signal and learns to estimate the spike information in an end-to-end fashion. Theoretically, the proposed approach formulates the spike estimation as a single channel source separation problem with unknown mixing conditions. The source corresponding to the action potentials at a lower resolution is estimated at the output. Experimental studies on the spikefinder challenge dataset show that the proposed signal-to-signal conversion approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art-methods in terms of Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and yields comparable performance for the area under the receiver operating characteristics measure. We also show that the resulting system: (a) has low complexity with respect to existing supervised approaches and is reproducible; (b) is layer-wise interpretable, and (c) has the capability to generalize across different calcium indicators.     

An in vitro study of Ocimum sanctum as a chemotherapeutic agent on oral cancer cell-line

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most commom cancer in the world. If remain untreated for several years, it may be fatal. Hence, it is important to prevent and treat OSCC at an early stage. In this study the effect of aqueous and dry leaves extract of Ocimum sanctum was observed on Ca9-22 cell line, which is an OSCC cell line. For this, Ca9-22 cell line was cultured and maintained. After 24 h, the cells were treated with aqueous and dry leaves extract of Ocimum sanctum plant. Viability of the cancerous cells were studied by 3-(4, 5-dimethythiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and neutral red uptake (NRU) assay. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC), lethal concentration₂₅ (LC₂₅), lethal concentration₅₀ (LC₅₀) and highest permissive concentration (HPC) was calculated by probit computational method. Experimentally, the MIC value was 5 mg/L, whereas the HPC was 30 mg/L of the plant extract in aqueous state. For the dry extract the MIC was 5 mg/L whereas the HPC was 35 mg/L for both MTT and NRU assays. For MTT assay LC values: 7.41 (LC₂₅), 14.79 (LC₅₀) and 26.91 mg/L (LC₇₅) for aqueous extract and 12.58 (LC₂₅), 20.89 (LC₅₀), 29.51 mg/L (LC₇₅) for dry extract. For NRU assay LC values were 10.23 (LC₂₅), 14.79 (LC₅₀) and 20.89 mg/L (LC₇₅) aqueous extract, and 16.59 (LC₂₅), 23.44 (LC₅₀), 30.19 mg/L (LC₇₅) dry extract of the plant. From the above study it was concluded that, Ocimum sanctum have anti-cancerous activity. It can further be used for therapeutic purposes.     

Interacting effects of water temperature and dietary protein level on hematological parameters in Nile tilapia juveniles,Oreochromis niloticus (L.) and mortality under Streptococcus iniae infection

Based on central composite rotatable experimental design and response surface method, the interacting effects of temperature (20 °C–34 °C) and dietary protein level (25%–50%) on hematological parameters including red blood cell (RBC), white blood cell (WBC) and hemoglobin (Hb) of juvenile Oreochromis niloticus were studied under laboratory conditions. The experiment lasted for 7 weeks. After the feeding trial, fish were challenged with Streptococcus iniae and mortality was recorded for within 8 days. Results showed that the linear and quadratic effects of temperature on RBC, WBC and Hb were highly significant (P < 0.01). When the dietary protein level was 25%–50%, the RBC, WBC and Hb were increased firstly and then decreased, but the linear and quadratic effects of protein level were insignificant (P > 0.05). The interacting effects of temperature and protein level on RBC and Hb were significant (P < 0.05). The regression equations of RBC, WBC and Hb toward the two factors of interest were established, with the coefficients of determination being 0.870, 0.836 and 0.881, respectively (P < 0.01). These equations could be used for prediction in practice. After the challenge, the mortalities for the combinations of 22.1 °C/28.7% and 20.0 °C/37.5% were significantly higher than 27.0 °C/37.5% (P < 0.05). The optimal temperature/dietary protein level combination was obtained at 27.9 °C/38.1% at which the lowest mortality (13.76%) was attained. This value was close to the optimal temperature/dietary protein level combination (29.4 °C/41.9%) for the greatest levels of RBC (2.560 × 10⁶ μL^?1), WBC (270.648 × 10³ μL^?1) and Hb (92.851 g L^?1). The results of this study indicated that preferred temperature/dietary protein level combination might strengthen the non-specific immunity and reduce susceptibility to S. iniae.     

Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Analysis Between Indian Red Jungle Fowl and Domestic Chicken Using Microsatellite Markers

The present study was conducted to assess the genetic diversity, population structure, and relatedness in Indian red jungle fowl (RJF, Gallus gallus murgi) from northern India and three domestic chicken populations (gallus gallus domesticus), maintained at the institute farms, namely White Leghorn (WL), Aseel (AS) and Red Cornish (RC) using 25 microsatellite markers. All the markers were polymorphic, the number of alleles at each locus ranged from five (MCW0111) to forty-three (LEI0212) with an average number of 19 alleles per locus. Across all loci, the mean expected heterozygosity and polymorphic information content were 0.883 and 0.872, respectively. Population-specific alleles were found in each population. A UPGMA dendrogram based on shared allele distances clearly revealed two major clusters among the four populations; cluster I had genotypes from RJF and WL whereas cluster II had AS and RC genotypes. Furthermore, the estimation of population structure was performed to understand how genetic variation is partitioned within and among populations. The maximum ?K value was observed for K = 4 with four identified clusters. Furthermore, factorial analysis clearly showed four clustering; each cluster represented the four types of population used in the study. These results clearly, demonstrate the potential of microsatellite markers in elucidating the genetic diversity, relationships, and population structure analysis in RJF and domestic chicken populations.     

The evolution of an ideal stent design and its impact on the aortic endothelium during and after percutaneous replacement

Vascular support structures are important devices for treating valve stenosis. A large population of patients is treated for valvular disease and the preferred mode of treatment is percutaneous valve replacement. Stent devices are proving to be an improved technology in minimally invasive cardiac surgery. This new technology provides highly effective results at minimal cost and with a short duration of hospitalisation. Stents as a supporting structure for tissue valves have evolved over the years into remarkably useful and effective devices. During this process, a number of specific designs have come and gone, and a few have remained. Many design changes were successful, and many were not. This article describes the merits and demerits of various stent designs and details the specific reasons why a particular novel design is expected to be the most suitable implant during and after percutaneous aortic valve replacement.